Raible Designs

[ANNOUNCE] Struts 1.1 Release Candidate 2 released

The Struts team is proud to announce the release of Struts 1.1 Release Candidate 2. This release includes some new functionality, but mostly just fixes for a number of bugs which were reported against earlier versions. The Struts Team believes that this release is ready for prime time, hence its designation as a release candidate.

The binary distribution is available at:

http://www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/struts/binaries/

and the source distribution is available at:

http://www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/struts/source/

In addition, the library distribution, which contains updated binaries without the sample applications, is available at:

http://www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/struts/library/

Details of the changes in this release are available in the Release Notes, which can be found here:

http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/userGuide/release-notes-1.1-rc2.html

I'll be updating both Hibernate (to 2.0 Final) and Struts (to 1.1 RC2) today, so I'll let you know if I find any issues.

Update: I found two issues. One is that Hibernate identifies itself as "Hibernate 2.0 beta 6" in its logging (should not have beta 6). The second issue is that the commons-logging.jar file that ships with Struts 1.1 RC2 is missing some .class files. I replaced the commons-logging.jar file with one from a nightly build of Struts I was using and everything seems to be fine. Without the update, I get no logging. I also found that Hibernate no long includes jdom.jar in its distro (it used to be there), the lack of it doesn't seem to impact anything (all my tests run).

JavaWorld Editor's Choice Awards - Winners

Here's a quick summary of winners of JavaWorld's 2002 Editors' Choice Awards. Winners are emphasized with bold. However, we all know that being a finalist is pretty huge too.

• Best Java Data Access Tool: Oracle 9iAS TopLink, CocoBase Enterprise O/R 4.5, Hibernate 1.2.4
• Best Java IDE: IntelliJ IDEA 3.0, Borland JBuilder 8.0, Eclipse 2.1
• Best Java Performance Monitoring/Testing Tool: JUnit 3.8.1, JProbe 5.0, Optimizeit Suite 5
• Best Java Application Server: BEA WebLogic Server 8.1, IBM WebSphere Application Server 5.0, JBoss 3.0
• Best Java Device Application Development Tool: Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) Wireless Toolkit 2.0, IBM WebSphere Studio Device Developer 5.0, Sun ONE Studio 4 Update 1 Mobile Edition
• Best Java-XML Tool: Xerces2 Java Parser 2.4, JAXB (Java Architecture for XML Binding), Xalan-Java 2.5
• Best Java Installation Tool: Java Web Start 1.2, InstallAnywhere 5, InstallShield MultiPlatform 5
• Best Java Book: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (Martin Fowler et al.), Java Development with Ant (Erik Hatcher and Steve Loughran), Java Performance Tuning, Second Edition (Jack Shirazi)
• Most Useful Java Community-Developed Technology: Apache Ant 1.5, Eclipse 2.1, Tomcat 4.1
• Most Innovative Java Product or Technology: AspectJ 1.0.6, Eclipse 2.1, JavaServer Faces

Congrats to all.

RE: JavaOne 2003 Blogs

I might as well mirror this list from the great Cactus guru Vincent Massol.

Here are some persons that will be blogging from JavaOne 2003

• http://www.simongbrown.com/blog/index.jsp
• http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/113
• http://www.eugenebelyaev.com/begblog
• http://blog.fuzzymagic.com/blog/page/sean
• http://alan.blog-city.com/index.cfm
• http://212.100.191.199/blog/page/werner
• http://blog.troublescope.org/blojsom/blog
• http://linuxintegrators.com/hl30/blog
• http://www.freeroller.net/page/cpurdy
• http://www.drunkandretired.com
• http://www.freeroller.net/page/cbeust
• http://www.webmink.net/minkblog.htm

Update: I added a link in the top-left for JavaOne Blogs. I will continue to add to this list as I find them.

Update 2: You can also checkout the webcasts.

[ANNOUNCE] Hibernate 2.0 Released!

Sweet! The Hibernate Team has lived up to their promise and released Hibernate 2.0 Final! [Download, Release Notes]

RE: While I'm choosing Hibernate over JDO ... for now

Now I will talk to you about the dealbreaker - the one thing about JDO that pushed me pretty rapidly over to the Hibernate camp: the query language. The JDO query language is just poor, very poor and of a syntax that only the designer could appreciate.

Class gameObjectClass = com.foo.GameObject.class;
Extent oldObjects = pm.getExtent (gameObjectClass, false);
String filter = "age > 25";
Query q = pm.newQuery (gameObjectClass, oldObjects, filter);
Collection oldGameObjects = q.execute ();

This unfortunately gets more and more complex as you have to introduce other variables into the query. This is a major failing of JDO IMO. Hibernate was just so much easier to deal with from the query perspective (and since that's what you'll be spending most of your time doing...).

List oldObjects = sess.find( "from obj in class com.foo.GameObjects where age > 25" );

Big difference in both presentation, LOC and generally understandability in my opinion. [Nation of Greg :: Redux]

I have to agree with Greg here. Hibernate's query language (HQL) is extremely easy to use. In fact, I've been amazed at how I've been able to guess the syntax and get it right 9 times out of 10! It's the best of SQL and OQL. If you think HQL is good - wait until you checkout the Query by Criteria syntax (very cool IMO). There's supposed to be a Hibernate 2.0 Final this weekend... only 26 hours left in my neck of the woods.

Infecting Myself with BugBear

I've gotten two e-mails with the BugBear virus this morning - both from my alter ego. Actually they were from "[email protected]", which doesn't exist. Strangely, it's a response to an e-mail I sent to the struts-user mailing list. I've received them so far on Yahoo and my Comcast e-mail, both of which have webmail interfaces, and therefore, no problems have ensued. In case you get an e-mail from me (or rather [email protected]) with the subject Re: Is it possible to change the base tile on the fly, kindly delete it.

I'm slapping this sucker in my Java category in order to reach a greater audience. Hope you don't mind.

Out-of-the-Box - My Review

It figures, after bitching about the lack of ROI for Developers on Open Source projects, I get an e-mail from Rob Cope of Out-of-the-Box. The e-mail said that I could get a free version of Out-of-the-Box Enterprise Edition for my contribution to the open source community.

So I think, "wicked cool" - this software sounds great! I downloaded (500 MB) and installed it, and that was the end of my experience with OOTB. No instructions on what to do next. I perused around the filesystem it installed and tried to run ant in a few directories, but no luck. So OOTB just gives me a bunch of OSS projects on my hard-drive, but they aren't built. I don't want to know what I'm doing wrong - I want to know where the documentation is that tells me what to do. I'd dig it if it let me install them projects (i.e. Apache) where I wanted, and also allowed me to upgrade existing installations. If it could migrate my existing settings or customizations, that would be even better. That is what I want.

That being said, I don't think I have much use for OOTB. Why? Because it's not updated enough. I'm the type of upgrade-happy SOB that wants to download and use as soon as the release announcement goes out. I want to get the latest snapshot from CVS and see if it solves my problems. I want to patch my local copy and fix the bugs myself. I want to install some applications in $TOOLS_HOME, and some in $SDKS_HOME. Lastly, while it's nice that OOTB sets the environment variables for me ($JAVA_HOME and $ANT_HOME), I'd appreciate it if it didn't overwrite my existing ones. A simple prompt to see if I want to change them would be sufficient. Especially since I have a newer version of Ant (1.5.3-1 vs. 1.5.3) than OOTB. I don't mean to be too critical - I just want to voice my true feelings. ;-)

JavaOne - Developer Coverage from Sue Spielman

Sue Spielman, local Java/Struts Guru, is heading out to JavaOne next week and promises developer coverage (minus the marketing hype) in a DJUG e-mail today. [More] Who's going to start compiling the list of JavaOne bloggers?

RE: Eclipse 3.0 M1 is out!

Here is a link to all the cool new features in this release! You can download from here. [A Cup of Joe]

The upgrade-happy developer in me can't help but click the download link. The New and Noteworthy page (near the bottom) notes many improvements to Eclipse on the Mac. I'd really love it if Eclipse was fast on OS X and Apple released OS X on Intel. I really dig the OS, just not the speed of the hardware.

RE: Sun to Rave about ease of use at JavaOne

Does Sun have something cool up there sleeve? Or do they have something they think is cool? As far as I can tell, they thing that Sun ONE is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm sure it is when compared to their iPlanet products. I should know, I've done way too much development on iPlanet. Actually, most of the coding I did was workarounds, rather than writing code. Anyway, I found this post on architectslobby.org that indicates that Sun thinks they've got something good.

Sun Microsystems next week will unveil a developer tool and community portal designed to broaden the appeal of its Java programming language.

The new developer tool, code-named Project Rave, will be demonstrated at Sun's JavaOne Conference in San Francisco next week. It will incorporate the JavaServer Faces Web APIs as well as a number of Java Web services and database connectivity technologies, all with the aim of making Java development -- and in particular, Java Web services development -- easier to do. [Full Article]

I doubt it'll be that good - just some enhancements to Sun ONE Studio I expect. If it was written in SWT, and it was open source (so we could all make it better) - that would be very cool! But I doubt that'll happen. The'll also be going live with java.net (whois record). Hope it's good - it's going to take a lot to make me want to read java.net over java.blogs.

Regardless of this announcement (and the new logo), next week IS going to be a good week. Java will be on the spotlight and in the news, and we all get to look forward to a vibrant week of blogging and announcements. Cool - I can't wait!